Student Blog

In the middle of the street @JoeySare

Once again, I left my last SCAB to the last minute. I always thought I just had terrible time management skills, but I think I just really enjoy the adrenaline kick of being close to a deadline. If I’ve got 2 weeks to do something, I’ll do it in the 2 hours before its due. That’s something that will probably have to change, but so far it’s worked for me. Anyway- on with the show.

Last Saturday night I went back to my old house for a party. It’s an old converted warehouse in Hackney Wick. Although I only moved out only 6 weeks ago, it was a little surreal to be back there again. I thought right back to when I moved in and how so much had changed, even between me moving out and now sitting here in my new room.

It’s a strange feeling to know somewhere so well, then to revisit it with a different mind set and for it to appear completely different. I have no idea what this feeling is called, but it kinda like a reverse déjà vu. Let’s go with Uv ajed.

I remember the day I moved in. Everything felt so fresh: a week prior I had been offered a place at SCA and had got offered a job on the same day, and this move was a new start that I really needed. It was good timing, as I’d just left my old job and felt like I was in a no-mans-land. I slowly unpacked beaten, unread copies of the reading list onto a shelf, made the bed I would spend very little time sleeping in, and organized my workspace I would spend many nights hunched over.

My room became a space for me to fully absorb my work. The white walls would eventually be covered in diagrams, drawings and post it notes. It was the house I had sat up all night working in my room, living on a diet of cigarettes and coffee, hoping that I would finish what I was working on soon so I could get more than 4 hours sleep or be able to take the next day off work.

This was the house I spent many nights drinking and talking with artists and musicians, travelers and directors, getting ideas about projects to run, and new ways of thinking about things.

This was the house in which I first met one of the most utterly astounding and beautiful people I’ve ever had the chance to know, completely unintentionally.

This house I now know to be one of the most rewarding growing experiences I’ve ever had. Complete freedom to do as I please, to explore ideas, and to work on them.

I look back on my old room with such delicate nostalgia. And now, as I’m writing this, I’m staring at boxes of books I’ve left until last minute to unpack in my new room in Bermondsey, wondering what memories over the coming year will fill this space. I hope I look back on the same one.